Abstract
Malaria, a disease caused by Plasmodium parasites, is widespread throughout tropical and sub-tropical regions worldwide; it mostly affects children and pregnant woman. Eradication has stalled despite effective prevention measures and medication being available for this disease; this has mainly been due to the parasite's resistance to medical treatment and the mosquito vector's resistance to insecticides. Tackling such resistance involves using renewed approaches and techniques for accruing a deep understanding of the parasite's biology, and developing new drugs and vaccines. Studying the parasite's invasion of erythrocytes should shed light on its ability to switch between invasion phenotypes related to the expression of gene sets encoding proteins acting as ligands during target cell invasion, thereby conferring mechanisms for evading a particular host's immune response and adapting to changes in target cell surface receptors. This review considers some factors influencing the expression of such phenotypes, such as Plasmodium's genetic, transcriptional and epigenetic characteristics, and explores some host-related aspects which could affect parasite phenotypes, aiming at integrating knowledge regarding this topic and the possible relationship between the parasite's biology and host factors playing a role in erythrocyte invasion.
Highlights
Human malaria occurs after the bite of a female Anopheles mosquito carrying Plasmodium parasites; the disease emerges mostly in tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world
This review has considered the available knowledge regarding some parasites’ genetic aspects influencing the development of invasion phenotypes, such as transcriptional and epigenetic characteristics, looking for a better understanding of the factors involved in erythrocyte invasion leading to such diversity, taking into account the effect of some host-related factors, such as host immune response and erythrocyte surface receptors
A genome sequence analysis of the parasite’s genetic attributes has been carried out to assess whether genomic composition might influence invasion adaptation; the results showed that the high A-T content in repeat regions of some antigenic proteins, such as merozoite surface proteins (MSP) 1, 2, and 3, might be acting as a strategy for evading a host’s immune response, since such high A-T composition was found to be associated with a reduced amount of hydrophobic amino acids and a relative increase in hydrophilic ones, these being good targets for antibody responses (Verra and Hughes, 1999)
Summary
Human malaria occurs after the bite of a female Anopheles mosquito carrying Plasmodium parasites; the disease emerges mostly in tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world. Studying the parasite’s invasion of erythrocytes should shed light on its ability to switch between invasion phenotypes related to the expression of gene sets encoding proteins acting as ligands during target cell invasion, thereby conferring mechanisms for evading a particular host’s immune response and adapting to changes in target cell surface receptors.
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